As the United States experiences record-breaking heat, tens of millions endure temperatures routinely surpassing one hundred degrees Fahrenheit, and local power systems falter due to power outages. Local grids become strained with peak energy use, peak brownouts strike city centers, and medical centers prepare their hospitals to treat spates of heat stroke and heat exhaustion. Yet in this ongoing climate disaster, the most severely neglected demographic is that of immigrant workers who labor outdoors in farm fields, construction sites, and delivery trucks, often without proper protections, adequate hydration, or sufficient medical care.
It is the predictable and building consequence of hardline immigration policy, years of underinvestment in worker protections, and infrastructure-based climate policy. Under the Trump presidency, federal immigration enforcement has grown exponentially. Mass rules paved the way to fast removals, limits on asylum claims, and strengthened the public charge rule, inducing greater fear and anxiety among illegal immigrants that they might seek any type of medical or government attention. Meanwhile, efforts to impose federal heat protection for outdoor workers repeatedly stalled during those years, despite increasing alarm among climate scientists.
The H.R. 1 "Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025" continues this trend of exclusion by undermining clean energy policy and electric vehicle markets, subsidizing fossil fuel, and eliminating EPA emission rules and DOE efficiency rules. The bill can focus on sparking fossil fuel industries and backing away from incentives but does not implement protections needed explicitly for the most likely workers to die from deadly heat. Field workers are not mandated to be offered shade, water, and breaks, and any workplace protections are denied to undocumented workers from deadly exposures.
The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy focuses particularly on this disparity. The center's report is supportive of parts of H.R. 1 that promote energy resilience at the city level, but the report is cautionary about the trade-offs that the bill makes to pay for new investment. To pay for new investment, the bill eliminates existing clean energy tax breaks, and most significantly, it excludes requiring labor protections for the very workers most physically and financially vulnerable: outdoor workers, many of whom are undocumented or immigrant workers.
Immigrant labor is the backbone of the American farm worker, the trucking and delivery industry, and the building trades. They put the food on the table, the roof over the head, and the package on the porch. But because they are poorly documented or financially vulnerable, they are barred from the labor protections or compelled to work in the shadows, fearful of deportation if they complain or access medical care.
Solutions: Municipalities/counties must have binding ordinances regarding heat safety for all workers outdoors (legal and illegal), mandatorily offer shade/drinking water/regularly scheduled rest breaks, emergency medical processes for extreme heatwaves; enforcement must be preventive with unannounced visits and special penalties for noncompliance. Public health agencies must work with trusted community organizations to present all precautions available, establish cooling centers with bilingual signage, staffing with culturally competent employees, undocumented residents made available to enter/get medical treatment without threat of criminal prosecution. Mobile hydration stations and outreach teams may provide services in the field. At the national level, OSHA should enact an enforced national standard on heat for all workplaces that work outside. Emergency response plans should incorporate sanctuary protections. Any employee, irrespective of immigration status, should be permitted to anonymously report hazardous heat conditions without invoking law enforcement or deportation proceedings.